and then there were seven
by thir13enth
Summary: Jellal hoped to not risk losing his eyesight for the unsuccessful recruitment of Oracion Seis, but fortunately after a brief battle the guild ended with an additional five members. And then there were seven. Drabbles centered around Crime Sorciere and their Oracion Seis newbies. Various shippings.
1. in a field full of flowers

**Either I drank too much coffee the other day or my imagination is just not leashed at the moment, but somewhere between 4 and 5 this morning, I drowned in a bunch of drabble ideas—all having to do with the current Crime Sorciere—now that there's five new members and much history to cover in that clique.**

 **So yeah, this story is going to be a bunch of (mostly unrelated) drabbles of events happened after Oracion Seis joined Crime Sorciere. Consider it my version of a spin-off. No set goals or schedules for this, so this will be updated sporadically, sorta in the same style as** ** _seven years,_** **the other Crime Sorciere drabble series I have up.** **Anddddd I want to thank the many tumblr friends (esp _boogey56_ ) for being part of that discussion with me to spur me to actually start writing these. Thank you, my dears!**

 **(Also, I know there's seven active members and all, but I don't want to discount the fact that Ultear may actually still be alive. Just wanted to make sure that was clear, because we can't forget Ultear after all that she's done!)**

 **Anyway, I've talked too much. Please enjoy!**

 **We first start with some one-sided Solano x Jellal (Jelano?) because come on, there was no way I was going to ignore that blush when he called her by name. Also it's slowly starting to become my next favorite Jellal-ship.**

* * *

 **in a field full of flowers under a sky full of clouds**

* * *

Sorano would never say a word but she very well knew the reason why her heart fluttered whenever a certain blue-haired heavenly body mage would call her by her real name.

Absentmindedly, she picked off the petals from a white flower that she had found earlier in the grass. She imagined that this would be like how it felt to pluck the feathers from a wing of an angel—with a soft and smooth pop.

She frowned as she came to the last white petal, holding it up to her face.

She always seemed to be picking even-number petaled flowers.

But who was she kidding? He had another scarlet beauty on his mind.

The angel mage tossed the skeleton of the flower off to the side. She let the gentle afternoon breeze wisp the last petal from the tips of her gloved fingers—a wish, perhaps.

What to wish for? She mused. Maybe for him to—

"Sorano," a luscious velvety tenor voice greeted.

Startled, but she knew the melody by heart. "O-oh, hi, J-Jellal!"

He gave her a small smile. "Do you mind if I join you?"

A thick beat of her heart. She glanced around—there was no one here but the two of them.

"Join…m-me?" she asked, pointing at herself.

Her mind was racing. She hated how she was stammering. It was completely unlike her and completely uncharacteristic. She wasn't usually like this. And why was she acting stupid? There was no one around in visible vicinity. Of course, he was asking if he could join her.

Join _her_.

"Yeah," he confirmed, rather casually.

"Of course!" she said, in a pitch slighter higher than she usually brought herself down to. "I mean—yeah, sure, no one's sitting…"

Her voice crackled to a close as he plopped down right next to her, crushing the grass and some of the white petals that she had thrown to the side during her previous fortune-telling experiment.

"Um—" but then she snapped her mouth shut, watching him recline and lie all the way down, tucking his hands under his head and stretching out his legs, keeping his right knee propped up. A couple of petals flew up from the ground underneath him—one landed on his navy blue hair and one landed on top of his left thigh.

"Hm?" he asked, turning his dark chocolate brown eyes in her direction.

"Ah," she gasped when his gaze searched her face for understanding. She motioned to his head, her other hand unconsciously twirling a lock of her white hair. "You have some…stuff on your hair."

"Oh," he said, continuing their one-syllabled conversation. His head tilted upwards and seeing the small petal resting on his shaggy bangs. She watched his slim lips kiss the air, blowing a puff of his warm sweet breath to lift the petal off his hair.

Her eyes followed the delicate thing float off into the spring gale. She imagined it was a small angel making its way up to heaven, drafted up by the heavenly body mage's light exhale.

Sorano looked back down briefly at her guildmate, heart skipping when she realized that he too had been following the white petal drift off in the spring wind. After a moment, the hazelnut orbs turned back to the blue sky, but she tore her eyes away, staring down at the grass, embarrassed.

She let the calm silence replace their conversation, sitting comfortably in the tranquility.

Every now and then, she would glance over at the blue-haired mage resting in the grass, a single white petal resting on his body, his eyes cast to the sky, the white clouds reflecting off his irises.

She couldn't help but notice how well-matched they were in that moment—shades of dark-blue-and-angel-white lying in the sea of grass like they were pieces of sky that had fallen out of the heavens.

But of course, she'd stop her imagination right there, when she would feel herself blush scarlet.

Even her cheeks knew her limits.

* * *

 **So whatcha think of Jelano? Honestly sounds like a dessert to me** — **hope you thought this piece just as sweet!**

 **thir13enth**


	2. second guessing

**Ugh, I know. Another update. I'm obsessed and the hamster wheels are turning way too hard and way too fast. I hope I'm not cluttering your inboxes with these alerts.**

 **Anyway, _thank you so much_ for your reviews, everyone! Especially my Jelano-shipping friends, haha! (There will be more Jelano to come, I swear. But before I start infesting this series with that, mayhaps now a brotp: Cobra and Jellal.**

* * *

 **second guessing**

* * *

"You know I can hear all your thoughts," Cobra suddenly said.

Jellal looked over at the poison dragon slayer for a moment before turning his head back to the fire in front of them, giving his guildmate a half-smile.

"Bullshit," he said.

But the younger man wasn't going to let Jellal loose. "All your dirty thoughts."

"Right."

"Would have never pegged you as that kind of a person."

"I'm not."

The heavenly body mage's indifference was starting to grate at Cobra's nerves. As the original creator of the game 'Fifty Shades of Red'—which often involved the entirety of Crime Sorciere discretely teasing their guild leader about a certain scarlet-haired woman to see how deep of a blush they would manage to get on his face—Cobra sought the daily challenge of finding out how to best do so.

"For real, Jelly—"

"Don't call me Jelly."

"Okay but for real—stop thinking about her."

Jellal wrinkled his nose, and Cobra smirked, knowing he was off to a good start to pestering the blue-haired man's annoyingly calm façade.

"I'm not thinking about her."

Too easy. "You don't even know who I'm talking about, you idiot."

Jellal gulped, louder than usual. Cobra carried on, his toothy grin widening.

"Oh," Cobra said, feigning curiosity. "Is _that_ what you miss about her the most?"

The other man turned his head back to Cobra, glaring at him. "Stop."

"I'll stop once you stop thinking about her."

"You can't mind read, Erik," Jellal countered, dropping the dragon slayer's real name like a threat. "I know your abilities better than that. You only listen to people's souls."

"Exactly," Cobra chided. "And your soul is really calling out right now."

The guild leader gave him a side glance, almost a roll of his eyes.

And to some extent, Jellal was right—Cobra couldn't _actually_ hear every single thought that was going through anyone else's mind.

But he was damn good at reading faces. And he was even better at catching people off guard.

So Cobra waited patiently while Jellal's eyes turned back to the flickering fire, undeterred by the occasional crackle and pop of a spark flying out of the burning logs. The lovesick fool's face glowed warm hues of red, yellow, and orange, the embers reflecting off his soft-smiled countenance.

"It looks like her hair, doesn't it?"

"Yeah…" Jellal agreed, the corners of his mouth slightly rising, gaze still glued to the flames.

However, the guild leader quickly snapped out of it, shooting the sleazy bastard a daggered look.

"Fuck you," he cursed.

But the dragon slayer had already fallen backwards to the ground, laughing his ass off.

* * *

 **I'm pretty sure this concept has been done a hundred times, but I thought I would throw down my own take on it. Jellal may seem OOC, but we haven't seen him interact with a particularly tease-y character, and I like to think that he'd have that same confidence responding to that as he did when going headfirst into a battle with all of Oracion Seis. ;)**

 **thir13enth**


	3. dreaming of nightmares

**I know, I know. Another update? It's not even like I have _that_ much time to kill but m** **y readers…you are so** ** _so precious_ and _dear_** **.** **I simply cannot believe how much support I've gotten from you all! I've been excited to write these for you and literally taking every free moment I have to write more! Thank you for the reviews and favorites and follows! Ever grateful for you wonderful people.**

 **And a note to LE POTATO: It's** ** _you_** **once again! Haha, I'm so happy you keep your same guest name through all the reviews. Really helps me put a name to the review. I so appreciate you following this story as well. As for your suggestion about Meredy learning about the ways of love…well I have Meredy here for sure, but I'm saving your request for another chapter! Aite?**

* * *

 **dreaming of nightmares**

* * *

She woke up in the middle of the night, gasping with little air left in her chest and strands of her pink hair sticking to her sweaty forehead. She inhaled deeply, as if she had been trapped under the surface of dark water and had just made it to the top in time for her to survive.

The young woman shuddered, looking around and making sure that the blackness that surrounded her was indeed the starry night sky that umbrella-ed her sleeping newfound guildmates and not the impenetrable body of salty sea that she had just dreamt of drowning in.

She looked down at her hands—gleaming white under the dappled moonlight in comparison to the rest of the black-blue scenery around her—before balling them into fists and then resting her face into her wrists, training her breath to calm back down.

"Meredy?" his gentle voice asked, soft footsteps snapping at scattered twigs around her bed space.

She turned her head toward the blue-haired man. She didn't say a word.

"Nightmares again?"

The Maguilty mage hugged her legs closer to her body, placing her chin in the crevice between the tops of her knees, torso hunched into a tight ball.

That was enough of a confirmation for Jellal to sit down on her sleeping mat with her. He folded his body into somewhat of the same position as her—albeit looser and not as tense, his elbows resting on his knees, slightly separated apart. He tilted his eyes to try to catch hers.

"I dreamed that you died," she said, her eyes shining under the silver moonbeams.

It was a recurring theme of her dreams—one that she only started talking about after the fight with the previous Oracion Seis members and one that she didn't utter a peep about with their new teammates.

Before Macbeth's nightmare, the idea of Jellal dying was only conjured tales within her own head, spurred by the ever present demon of loss in her history. It had been manageable, but when she saw Zero—risen from the dead—completely banish the older man's existence from the face of the world right in front of her eyes, the possibility that what her mind only been fictionalizing could actually surface to life became suddenly very real.

The bad dreams only increased in severity after that.

Sometimes Jellal would die several times a night under her unconscious eyelids—and each and every evening, she was trapped, unable to wake up from the horrible nightmare until her lungs gave out and she awoke, gasping for air that always felt much too rarefied.

Since then, Meredy had then begun to realize that she had a severely dark imagination. She could list all the ways that her dreams had terrified her with Jellal's death on each the falling autumn leaves and she'd still be left with many haunting thoughts to rake her mind with.

"What happened?" he hesitantly asked.

He hated making her replay the nightmare, but he had promised her a while back to press her and to make her talk to him so that she wouldn't end up trapped in her own mental faculties.

"We were drowning," she replied. "You and me…and Ultear."

Jellal could have been surprised that the raven-haired woman had begun entering Meredy's nightmares, but he wasn't—he was certain that their former teammate was already an established ghost within the crevices of the adolescent's mind.

He wouldn't have known at all about her suicidal attempt if Ultear hadn't told him herself, the day before she left them with no time left to spend with her.

"I'll never forgive myself for that," Ultear had told him, voice bitter and her fingernails clawing at her own forearms. "I'll never forgive myself for giving up in front of her and putting her through that."

The guild leader returned himself back to the present day Meredy, glad that the night shaded his recalling of some of the older woman's last words to him.

"I'm still scared of the ocean," Meredy suddenly added. And then after a second she said, "I feel like it's full of lost souls."

Jellal let out the exhale that he had been penting up in his chest, realizing that Meredy had also been thinking about Ultear.

"It's okay to be scared," he told her.

"I'm still scared, too," he admitted, after a moment.

And then he smiled. "I'm scared of a lot of things."

A silence stretched between the two of them.

"I don't know," she said shakily, as if she had given up thinking about everything, pressing her face back into her hands. "I don't want to lose anymore."

His eyes widened at her bold statement. "Meredy…"

"I can't lose anymore," she resolved, voice regaining her strength. "I won't lose anymore." She looked at him, hard eyes and determined stare. "You're not going anywhere, okay?"

He didn't tell her that he had considered losing himself multiple times before.

He didn't tell her that loss was something she couldn't prevent.

He didn't tell her lies, however.

"No," he assured. "I'm always going to be right here."

He let one hand rest on her left shoulder—right above her heart.

* * *

 **Hm...maybe that was too subtle. But basically he's acknowledging that he's not always going to be there but he's giving her a little bit of a white lie right now. He is going to be there always...at least in her heart.**

 **Lol oops. That turned out a little bit sadder than I had originally planned. Haha, sorry. Just going back to my angsty and dark roots for this drabble. I need some of that bitter in my soup of words so you'll have to bear with me through those. ;) I swear the next one will be lighter.**

 **thir13enth**


	4. what's in a name

**Ugh! You are all too good for me. Seriously. I leave the computer, back to real life for a moment, and when I come back, my email is filled with endearing reviews from readers. You are the best clique. Seriously the best.** ** _Is there anything that I can do for you?_ Like I seriously want to do some sort of a kiriban or some way to show my appreciation for you! Just let me know in comments or PMs!**

 **Anyway for this update: This drabble is sorta sweet.**

 **Okay, that was a pun, but you'll understand later in about 500 words.**

 **To TOR ALVAREZ: Hm...honestly I'm not sure what double standards you're talking about….maybe I'm completely glazing over something? Haha, let me know and thanks for pointing it out!**

 **To DEAR ANON: There's a hint of Jelano in this one, but I actually want to write a Jelano-centric few in later chapters! Maybe…in two chapters? I definitely have a number of ideas I want to bring to life for Jelano!**

* * *

 **what's in a name?**

* * *

When Jellal and Meredy came back from their quick scouting of the area, they found the previously Oracion Seis clique chattering away in a suspiciously tight circle.

Needless to say, that needed investigation—much like the recent Zeref search the two of them had just come back from.

"What's going on?" the guild leader asked, half concerned in the case something awful had happened, although when it came to those five, he was fairly certain that they had just been fooling around.

"We're thinking of codenames for you two," Sawyer explained innocently.

"Why?"

"Codenames are part of our tradition, and we wanted to give you each one," Richard replied.

"Yes," Macbeth agreed. "We were accepted as part of your family, and we wanted to show that we have accepted you into ours."

"Oh," Meredy gasped, and even Jellal had to admit that he was surprised by the sudden amicable gesture by their newest members.

"Yes, and we've finally figured it all out," Erik said.

Meredy immediately sat down to join them on the ground. Jellal followed suit. "So what are our codenames?" she asked, excitedly, ready to be inducted. "What's mine?"

"Musica," Sorano announced, a proud smile on her face. She hugged Meredy tightly—the first affectionate motion that the younger girl had ever seen from the misanthropic woman. "Because you've helped us discover the harmony between all of us after we joined."

"And your earmuffs make you look like you're always wearing headphones," Richard smartly added, with a point of his finger.

The newly codenamed Meredy laughed. "Wow," she said, her face completely lit up. "You really thought my name through!" She turned to look at the Crime Sorciere leader. "What about Jellal?"

"Jellal will be dubbed Blueberry Cheesecake," Macbeth presented curtly.

The guild leader looked absolutely horrified. "What?" he asked, albeit calmly.

"You are now Blueberry Cheesecake."

Meredy had been confused for a moment, but when she saw the unified smirk across the faces of all the Oracion Seis members—and _especially_ Erik—she put two and two together. She smiled sweetly when the math all worked out quite perfectly, completely in on the inside joke.

Jellal, however, was still figuring out the algebra. "Why is my codename so long?" He studied all other six guild members' eyes, searching for the answer. "Also, it sounds stupid," he added, bluntly. "Why am I a dessert when everyone else has a more…relevant name?"

Sorano was quick to answer. "Because, Jellal," she said pointedly, poking his forehead with a dainty finger. "You're very sweet."

The blue-haired mage blinked and furrowed his eyebrows, considering the supposedly kind words. "Oh," he said, and then looked straight up at her. "Thank you."

She pulled herself backwards from Jellal and crossed her arms, one hand on her chin, blushing a light pink at the sudden eye contact with him. "W-Well, don't thank me. Cobra thought of it first," she deflected, pretending not to be flustered.

Jellal turned a little skeptical. "Really now?" he remarked, looking at the poison mage.

Unfortunately, Erik couldn't wipe the sly grin off his face in time. "Yeah," he said, confident nevertheless. "And your hair is blue—so Blueberry Cheesecake seemed right for you."

The cheesecake's eyebrow lifted in question.

"...and I might have read somewhere in a magazine that it was a certain someone's favorite dessert."

When Jellal's cheeks suddenly turned a matching shade of scarlet, all six of them knew he had finally balanced the equation.

* * *

 **I'll explain the magazine reference in a future drabble. To come!**

 **And yes, I fit in some Jelano, light Jerik, and** ** _very_** **implied Jerza. Not sure when the stars will align like this again so enjoy this for now, haha.**

 **Also, whoever the hell started the whole Strawberry Shortcake and Blueberry Cheesecake thing, by the way, deserves** ** _all_** **the credit for this inside joke. I've already used these references in other pieces but never this explicitly and I think whoever thought of this deserves a round. So cheers!**

 **thir13enth**


	5. of love and other hormones

**Hey friends! As always, I am ever grateful for your support and your love. I really don't know what I've done to deserve you!**

 **Hopefully this update starts to help show you how much I super appreciate you all!** **It also morphed into a questionable one-sided Jeredy and some words about being a teenager. My bad.**

 **To TOR ALVAREZ: Oh, I think I see what you're saying. Like in terms of Meredy giving up on Ultear even though she's not dead yet? I don't think I addressed it specifically in the drabble (maybe I'll save it for another time) but I don't think that in canon Meredy and Jellal gave up on Ultear necessarily. Ultear had said her goodbyes pretty definitively, I think.**

 **To LE POTATO: I think this is close to what you might have been requesting a couple chapters back with Richard teaching Meredy the ways of love. Although, I think it turned out a little less fun and happy that I had first thought I would write it as.**

* * *

 **of love and other hormones**

* * *

When the pink-haired young adult squatted down next to Richard to see what the large angular man was peering down at, he welcomingly received her into his sphere of love.

"What are you looking at, Hoteye?" Meredy asked, quickly correcting herself.

"This bush!" he brightly answered.

She looked at him with a raised eyebrow, confused. "Why are you looking at this bush?"

"I love this bush," he explained.

Meredy gave him a wry smile, observing him with questioning eyes. "You toss around the word love very loosely," she remarked. "It's almost like you don't take the word seriously."

Richard looked back at her for a moment and then returned a complacent smile. "Well I do love this bush. And I mean it seriously."

Exasperated, she sighed, not understanding her guild mate's position at all. "What can you possibly love about this bush?"

"I think it's amazing that this bush can grow so beautifully in the earth without any guidance but the sun," Richard answered, before he took one of the ends of the branches. "Look—at all these shades of green. The newest leaves are the cutest—they poke out of the stems like they're first shy to say hi and they are the lightest green. And the oldest leaves are the jaded and weary, the darkest green leaves. They're tough and have made it this far in the plant's life without falling off, though the strongest of winds and the coldest of winters."

The younger woman's doubt began to grow into admiration for her nakama's unique appreciation of everything in the world. "Well I guess if there's anyone that can love everything, it's you," she said, with a soft smile.

It was a smile laced with a sadness that Richard didn't think was deserved on such a young person. She smiled like she was at least 20 years older than she actually was.

"Do you love anyone, Meredy?" Richard asked, setting down the bush's branch and turning toward her.

She forced an ashamed laugh and scratched her head. "I'm actually not so sure myself. I don't think so," she said. "Aren't I too young for those kinds of conversations?"

Richard looked at her, keeping a pitiful expression to himself.

In reality, she was much too old to have never had those kinds of talks.

But there was really no other way to look at her situation—every single person that she could have ever loved and probably ever loved had been taken away from her before she even really knew what the definition of love was. As a former Dark Guild mage, he had heard about the Maguilty Magic user—a young child that wasn't even an adult—and how her village had been ransacked as a child.

"What do you know about love, then?" he asked, thinking it was maybe an easier question to answer.

Yet, Meredy took a while to reply.

"Ultear—" she started, taking a gulp of air. "Ultear said that love was like how Jellal felt toward Erza."

"Erza? You mean the Fairy Tail mage?"

If Richard had ever heard about the guild leader's personal life, this was certainly the first time anyone had ever confirmed it to him. Although to Richard, this fact wasn't all too surprising. The scarlet-haired girl and Jellal had been very close from the start.

"Yeah," Meredy affirmed.

"What would you describe love as, then?" he asked, carrying on their conversation.

She frowned, thinking a moment. "It's painful," she finally said.

Richard tilted his head slightly, curious. But he didn't need to ask further for Meredy to clarify, although it took her a while to process and admit.

"When Ultear and I had used my Sensory Link on Jellal during the Grand Magic Games…" she began slowly. "When he looked at Erza…it hurt so much," she said. She looked up at Richard, her eyebrows knitted tightly together. "It was painful."

"Painful?"

"Yeah," she said, closing her hand into a fist and bringing it to the left of her chest. "Right here. It felt…it felt like I couldn't breathe—like I couldn't breathe without her…but also that I couldn't breathe with her there either."

Richard kept a smile to himself. Jellal was perhaps the worst person to make for an example of love.

"There's different kinds of love, you know," Richard explained.

"I guess," she agreed, but it was an empty consensus.

He attempted to lift the mood a little bit, putting a finger to his chin. "Angel really loves angels, right?"

"Yeah."

"And Midnight really loves to sleep. It's the only thing he seems to do every hour of his life, right?"

A smile quirked up at the corners of her lips. "Yeah, but—"

"And you love Cobra's mushroom soup, don't you? Cobra can't cook very well but you seemed to not be able to get enough of the soup that he made the other day."

She giggled. "Yeah, but that's not real love," Meredy giggled. "That's just using love as an expression."

"But it's love all the same!" Richard pointed out.

"I guess," she repeated, but she still didn't seem too convinced.

Well—the girl had a point.

Richard very well knew that his all-embracing nature was unique, although he made it his job to try teach this to everyone. But learning was all a process and he didn't expect Meredy to understand how he felt about the world within a short five-minute lecture. She would figure it out herself soon.

"If you put it that way then, I love you," Richard said.

Meredy laughed. "But you love everything!"

"Okay," he bounced back, before carefully adding, "Ultear loves you."

There was a little hiccup of silence before the young girl nodded slowly.

"And Jellal loves you."

"He doesn't love me," she corrected quickly.

Richard could immediately tell he hit a sensitive spot. "What do you mean? Of course he does!"

She shook her head vigorously. "It's not the same." She looked up at Richard. "You said it yourself—there's different kinds of love."

"But that doesn't mean he _doesn't_ love you," Richard retorted. "Jellal very much cares for you and makes sure that you're safe all the time. And he doesn't let any of us bully you."

"I _know_ ," she argued, her voice a little raised. "But it's not like how I—"

And she snapped her mouth shut and looked at him to see if he had caught her words.

"I mean…" She shook her head, gaze falling to the ground, giving up on the explanation. "It's just not the same," she finally concluded.

"Okay."

Her eyes looked back up at him. "Don't tell anyone we talked about this."

"My lips are sealed," the older man assured.

"Promise?"

"Promise."

Meredy sat on that for a moment, staring at the bush in front of them.

"I'm just so confused," she confessed after a minute, putting her hands in her face.

He thought before responding. "Well, being confused is just part of being a teenager," he replied nonchalantly.

She looked up at him quizzedly, pulling her face out of her hands, as if she thought he was joking.

"What does my age have to do with anything?" she tested, her eyebrows accusatory.

Richard could really only give her a gentle smile.

* * *

 **Hmmm…I'm not sure how that drabble went. That was actually relatively difficult to write because I wasn't sure where I was going. *sweats* But at least I was able to incorporate Richard into the series! What did you think of his characterization?**

 **Also, lol, I'm starting to notice that many of these drabble scenes are going to be of them sitting down in a grass field somewhere—but I guess that's typical of a bunch of runaway fugitives. xD**

 **thir13enth**


	6. no way back up

**Admittedly, I wasn't planning on more Jelano until a few more chapters in, but I thought this little tidbit should go in while you're all waiting—especially since I started the whole series with Jelano!**

 **There's some lyrical inspiration drawn from some progressive house called "No Way Back Up" by Nigel Good. The tone is sorta different from the song but it's a good tune if you want to listen to it (and actually trust what I recommend to you).**

 **To LE POTATO: Yes, dear. You can refer to me as your senpai, if you wish. Of course!**

 **To ARCLIN: Sorry, my total bad. I know I promised Sawyer in this installment but then I forgot that I promised Jelano already for this round. I swear on my life Sawyer will be in the next one!**

 **To DEAR ANON: I believe this is the Jelano that I promised you! I hope you find this satisfactory. ;)**

* * *

 **no way back up**

* * *

Night was Angel's favorite time of the day.

It might not have seemed very unlikely for the heaven-loving woman to favor the skies of velvet black over those of the clearest blue, but she supposed there were many reasons that she preferred the darker hours.

She loved how the cool air carried the foreshadowing wind of the next day. She loved how the soft moonlight illuminated her white dress, as well as her rather pale skin and hair. She loved how the stars offered her wishes and were so kind to her even though they were light-years away.

And of course—she wasn't going to deny that she was misanthropic—she especially loved the night for the peaceful silence of everyone around her, because honestly sometimes she could only really tolerate people when they were sleeping and not jabbering their mouths off.

Oh, and maybe there was one more thing—she loved how every night she would watch the stars together with _him_.

Angel hummed herself, looking for her fellow guild mate. Her trained eyes were able to spot him fairly quickly despite the lack of light, and she found him perched on a high branch in a tree just above where the rest of Crime Sorciere was resting. She steadily climbed her way up the tree, before balance walking toward him on the branch that he was sitting on.

"Hey," he greeted her, eyes peeling away from the stars to greet her.

"Hi," she softly sighed, her heart beating at the top of her throat.

She was glad that the night covered her blush. She took a seat carefully next to him, joining him on the sturdy and thick branch. She pretended that it was an accident when her ungloved hand brushed over his, propping herself up onto their stargazing perch.

They were sitting dangerously high above the ground, the bodies of their sleeping guild mates at least a few stories below them, but Angel knew that she was safe with Jellal.

"The stars are so clear today," he murmured, a deep rumble in his throat that she wore she could feel at the base of her heart.

She reminded herself that she was supposedly watching the stars—and not him—and looked up to where his eyes were aligned. "Yeah," she agreed. "You can even see a few of them twinkle."

He smiled, the curve of his lips shadowing across his firm jaw. The moonlight made his chiseled features even more exquisite, and she tried with all her might to prevent herself from just leaning over and running her lips over his sharp edges.

Angel felt like the luckiest girl in the world, sitting in the peaceful night under the stars next to a man that appreciated the serene air and the twinkling of the faraway galaxies as much as she did. This was really all that she could have wished for—maybe more than becoming part of the heavens herself.

"Sorano," he suddenly said, after a moment.

Her heart stopped. She would never get over how softly his tongue rolled the r in her name. She didn't ever think there was anyone else that would be able to say her name with the same gentle adoration as he did.

"I've been meaning to ask you something for a while," he continued.

She had had hundreds of dreams where Jellal had started the conversation this way—and she had had rehearsed millions of times what she would say in response, from the wittiest of statements to the most seductive of phrases.

But out of many things she could have said, she only said one word.

"W-well?" she stuttered.

"What's your favorite constellation?" he finally asked, before he turned his head to face her.

This was when she realized that her imagination had gone much too far—she had originally thought that he was going to ask her something more…meaningful, but she quickly laughed at herself and tucked away the fictional narratives that her mind had played out, knowing that all of that was impossible.

But this was when she also realized that he had caught her staring at him. Her voice caught in her throat and she struggled to answer the question, jerking her eyes back up to the sky and pretending like the whole ordeal never happened, and _especially_ pretending like she hadn't been hoping that he would have been asking her another more meaningful kind of question.

"Um, I—" she answered, searching quickly for a group of stars.

Indeed, Angel loved the stars, but she wasn't quite _that_ informed about them. But she couldn't just let his question slide either! Otherwise, it would have been much too obvious that there were other reasons that she was spending every night with him besides the stars themselves.

"That's a hard question. I like all of them…but if I were to choose…" she stammered. She looked at him, noting that he was still watching her and waiting for her answer. "I…I don't know the name of it."

He gave her a smile. "Point it out for me, then."

She obliged, pointing at a random cluster, but she had done this so suddenly and nervously that she leaned just a little too far backwards and found herself falling off the tree branch.

"Agh!" she gasped, but then felt a quick-reacting and strong arm hoist her back up.

"Oops," Jellal calmly said, scooping his arm around her back and pulling her against him.

"S-Sorry! Thank you!" she peeped.

She laughed nervously and embarrassed, realizing that she was now leaning into his chest and that he had one arm secured around her in some form of a one-armed embrace. He smelled absolutely delicious and his body warmth was divine. Her heart exploded.

She couldn't _believe_ this had happened—both in that she had made such a fool of herself and in that he had saved her so gracefully.

"Careful there," he warned in a dove voice, giving her a grin. "Otherwise you might fall."

Oh, but little did he know that she had already fallen for him.

Hard and face first.

With no way back up.

* * *

 **Is that all the Jelano I have at hand? Absolutely not, so shout if you want some more so I can put it in my queue! (If anything, we all want a little more Jellal in our lives, right?)**

 **And I'll see you next time, dear readers and fellow Crime Sorciere fans!** **Excited to hear what you think about this chapter. :D**

 **thir13enth**


	7. cookie monster

**Hello again, friends! Time and inspiration have met once again. (Of course, helped along by a request by a precious reviewer.)**

 **Also, I sure hope I'm Jelano-ing you up. I sorta want to build up that ship, even if I'm doing it single-handedly. Maybe my next goal will be a whole series just dedicated for that purpose.**

 **To LE POTATO: Aw, thank you so much for that! I'm glad that "feels canon." That honestly used to be my goal for writing FanFiction when I was younger—to have the characters so down that it feels like it could actually be real.**

 **To ARCLIN: Here's your Sawyer-centric piece! Hope you enjoy! I sorta took your idea and morphed it a little bit—hopefully this is still to your satisfaction.**

* * *

 **cookie monster**

* * *

"Alright, who stole the cookies from the cookie jar?" Sorano seethed, swiveling around to face her guild members, a dark look on her face and both her hands on her hips.

Macbeth and Richard—who had both just happened to be standing around the kitchen because they had nothing better to do while waiting for dinner—looked up at the white-haired woman, confused.

Erik yawned, turning away from the pan where he was casually sautéing mushrooms and leaning back against the stove, shaking the wooden spatula in his hand. "Okay, Angel, what happened now?"

Sorano raised a glass jar from the counter—clearly once filled to the top with sweets but now with just measly crumbs remaining on the bottom—and pointed at it. "This!" she exclaimed. "Who did this?"

"What!What!What'sgoingon?" Sawyer asked, in speedy sentences and zooming into the kitchen upon hearing the commotion, before stopping by the counter, still running in place. He jerked his head toward Sorano. "Youcalled?What'sgoingon?"

The angel mage's eyebrows knitted together, her cheeks flushing furiously with a tinge of extra rage.

"Yes, _Racer_ ," she hissed. "I called everyone here because _someone_ got Meredy upset after that _someone_ ate all the cookies that Meredy had just baked earlier today!"

"Why are you so angry about cookies?" Macbeth asked nonchalantly. "I've never seen you upset about anything except at other humans."

"I _am_ upset at a human," Sorano pointed out. "Because this _human_ made Meredy upset! She had been planning on giving those cookies out after dinner time for dessert so that we could purge all the _bad taste_ from tonight's dinner out of our mouths!"

Erik tsked. "Alright, insult the chef while you're at it," he scowled, turning back to the stove and pushing mushrooms around in the pan. "How about your motherfuckers start cooking for yourselves for once?"

"How about you stop cooking mushrooms all the damn time?" she retorted.

"I think Erik's food is great!" Richard exclaimed, pointing a finger up to the sky.

"Shut up!" Sorano exclaimed, glaring at the larger man, who immediately saw reason not to mess with her anymore. She turned back to her Oracion Seis comrades. "Now, who ate the cookies?"

"MaybeJellalatethem," Sawyer suggested. "Yeahwhyaren'tyouaskingifJellalatethem?"

"Yeah, if anything _that_ bastard would be the one responsible," Erik agreed, snarkily. "Just make him the guilty one. I'm sure he'd take the blame for it anyway."

"That is a _very_ mean thing to say about our guild leader, Cobra," Richard interrupted.

"Oh, shut up, you know it's true," the poison dragon slayer retorted, while Macbeth's cackle filled the background noise.

Sorano turned the conversation back to the cookies. "Well, it could never be Jellal," she defended, her cheeks blushing a bit. "Jellal would never do such a terrible thing."

"Oh my god, Jellal would _never_ do such a terrible thing," Erik mocked in a high-pitched voice, waving around both his arms up in imitation.

Macbeth burst out cackling once again.

"You!" Sorano shooting daggers through her eyes at Macbeth. "Stop laughing." She turned back toward the cook, eyes narrowed. "And _you,_ don't burn our dinner," she snapped, in a low threatening voice.

"Ooohh,Angel'sgetting _really_ madnow!" the speed demon taunted.

"Racer," the angel mage suddenly said, eyes staring straight at him. " _You_ ate the cookies, didn't you?"

"Hm,what?" Sawyer asked, tilting his head, still running in place. "Idon'tknowwhatyou'retalkingabout."

"You're talking a lot quicker and moving around _a lot more_ than usual," she continued. "Almost like you had too much _sugar_ …"

"That'snothowmymagicworks," he argued. "Comeon,Angel. Youknowmymagicworksbydistortingotherpeople'sperceptions!"

"From here, it looks like you're just on a sugar high," she pressed, not giving in.

"Well then," Sawyer challenged, his voice slowing and deepening while he folded his arms across his chest, striding up to Sorano at a regular pace and directly confronting her. "How do you know I wasn't just distorting your sense of time?"

The angel wasn't daunted, tiptoeing up to point a finger at the man's face and leaning close in.

"Because you got a crumb of something on your _lip_."

* * *

 **Teehee—I imagine that Sorano would eventually act as the very protective older sister for Meredy. I was able to tuck in some implied Jelano in there as well, hah.**

 **Hopefully they weren't** ** _too_** **OOC, haha! Honestly this is my own interpretation of how things would have went down. (And as for the mushrooms, I've made reference to them twice already—I'll get to it in a later drabble!)**

 **thir13enth**


	8. third time's the charm

**Hello my darling friends! Now we're back with more Jerik brotp (thanks to** ** _Evilkitten3_** **for reminding me what it's called!) because I couldn't get enough the first time around…**

 **And also, you can think of this as the precursory event to the ' _given name_ ' drabble. Re: magazine. But again, these one-shots can all stand alone.**

* * *

 **third time's the charm**

* * *

"You know I can hear all your thoughts," Cobra suddenly said.

Jellal slapped the Sorcerer's Weekly magazine in his hand shut, looking off to the side and closing his eyes, eyebrows furrowed. "Not this again," he exhaled sharply.

"But for real, Jelly—"

"And stop calling me Jelly."

Cobra clicked his tongue to himself, a sly smile creeping over his face. Jellal was definitely testier today than usual, from the sound of it.

"So whatcha got there, Mr. Fernandes?" the dragon slayer taunted, eyeing the very flashy cover of the issue. "Keeping up with the local news?"

The guild leader rolled up the magazine in one hand, fingers curling into a tense half fist. "What do you want, Erik?"

There was he was again, dropping Cobra's real name like a threat.

Hah, as if _that_ was going to stop him.

"Oh nothing at all. I was just wondering what current events were going on since we've been so in-and-out of cities and always avoiding the authorities. I haven't been up to date with the times lately," Cobra said, taking a seat on the dirt— _very_ close to Jellal.

His intentional ignoring of personal space boundaries was a test, and the blue-haired man fell right for the trap, leaning away from Cobra and shifting his feet in the opposite direction of the poison mage. Cobra contained the little snicker that threatened to slip from his lips, tongue literally in cheek.

Their almighty leader was much too telltale. There was practically a novel written on the man's face.

Or rather—in this case—the summer swimsuit issue of Sorcerer's Weekly.

"Nothing interesting is going on," the man replied.

"You have your finger bookmarked on one of the pages," Cobra observed, nodding his head toward Jellal's right hand, the index finger which was—indeed holding the place that the mage had been caught perusing.

"Keep your damn eyes to yourself."

"One eye, sir," he corrected, with a sleazy grin. "Just one."

Jellal appeared to groan silently at Cobra's grammatical prescriptivism, or at least take a deep breath in and out.

"Well?" he pressed. "What's the news? Did you find a juicy investigative _exposé_ to read?"

The purple-haired man knew he hit the target when his victim—who, of course, was bright enough to catch the double entendre behind his words—immediately turned fifty shades of red, and he smiled widely from pointy ear to pointy ear before bringing his mouth inches away from Jellal's ear.

"Can I have a look?" Cobra asked, in a daring whisper.

The guild leader raised the rolled issue—bookmarked finger slipping out of place—above his head, a precursory warning that if the dragon slayer didn't duck within the next four seconds he was going to get slapped in the face.

"Or maybe I'll just walk off and tell the others about the good _news_ I've discovered," Cobra added.

A moment. And then with a frustrated sigh, Jellal brought down the magazine in a single downward motion, stopping centimeters before Cobra's face.

"Thanks, _Jelly_ ," the poison mage cooed, taking the Sorcerer's Weekly from his guildmate's hand. He looked over at Jellal, who had closed his eyes and was clearly pretending to be indifferent.

Cobra immediately identified the fingerprint-oiled edges of the two-page color spread that the older man had been 'reading' intently before he had come along to interrupt, opening the center feature and raising an eyebrow when seeing a certain shade of scarlet with very much to show.

At this point, Jellal's eyes were open, giving him a side glare.

"Keep your damn eyes to yourself," he growled.

"One eye, sir," he corrected, with his second sleazy grin of the day. "Just one."

* * *

 **Lol, okay, I have to admit that was the most fun piece I've written for this series so far. I have to do more of these Jerik brotp pieces. Also suddenly Erik is becoming one of my favorite tertiary (okay let's be real, probably quaternary) characters to write about—I totally see him as witty and way too observant for his own good.**

 **And hm…I've made the reference to their 'Fifty Shades of Red' game twice already…perhaps I should actually write the backstory to that…**

 **Let me know what you think, as usual! More Cobra? More Jerik? More Jellal teasing?**

 **thir13enth**


	9. ouroboros

**After many a demand for more Jerik, I've finally gotten my ass down on writing more of it. And holy shit—there's practically 50 reviews on this story? You are all so amazing.**

 **Also also also! BIG announcement, but after hearing demand for more Jelano, I've decided (along with tumblr friends** boogey56, blamedorange, **and** mags-duranb **) to organize Jelano Weekend (** January 8 to 10, 2016 **)! I've already roped** dragonshost **in as well (lol), so if y'all want in, message me! And if you just want to bathe in the glory of this heavenly couple, wait around until then!**

 **But first** (and this is not polished at all) **, this piece for my beloved EvilKitten3.**

* * *

 **ouroboros**

* * *

Cobra looked pensively at the green and yellow blades of fresh spring grass, lying on his stomach trying to avoid getting as much sun as he could in his eye.

Damn the fucking sun. Damn how fucking sleepy the warmth made him. Damn being outside and on the run with nowhere to be and damn being a fugitive.

Damn the whole world, god damn it.

The poison dragon slayer fought a strong urge to hurl obscenities at the universe and to roll around in the grass to release his pent up frustration. Honestly at the base of it all, he didn't know what was causing him to feel as agitated as he was at that particular moment, but he figured it half had something to do with the fact that he also couldn't figure out exactly what he needed.

What did he need?

Well, he'd been wishing for one thing his entire life—someone to listen and pay attention to him.

And it made sense. With his excellent hearing and his phenomenal observation skills, all he really did was listen. And he listened all day—he couldn't really just "turn off" his abilities—but he was never really listened _to_.

Sure, he said words and his guild mates responded to them, but he was never really taken seriously, always brushed off to the side because he was teasing them or joking around too much.

Cobra's thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a flicker of grass and a rustle of leaves.

He reacted right away but he wasn't afraid. In fact, he was drawn in by the familiarity of the sound.

There was no doubt. It was—

A snake.

He fell back to his stomach, focusing his one eye on the glossy blue-black scales of the coiled creature. The snake was threatening, head still but the remainder of its body curling into a tighter S-shape. It flicked a venomous purple tongue at him, slit eyes narrowing at him.

Poised. Patient. Elegant. Graceful.

He raised a hand slowly from his side, reaching his fingers out towards the snake.

It didn't move. And his heart was just as still and he let his breath freeze.

He was tense, excited, scared, but not relaxed, calm, at ease.

Was the snake a friend? An enemy?

Regardless, his heart jumped upon feeling the light feathery tickle of the snake's tongue on his forefinger. A smile perched on his lips and for a moment his world was just that snake and—

No longer interested, the black-blue scaled animal suddenly snapped back from him and slithered away, ducking into the tufts of yellow-green meadow grass, leaving nothing but a winding trail in the earth brown dirt.

Cobra sighed, letting his hand fall flat to the ground.

"You miss her, don't you?" someone behind him said.

"Yeah…" the poison mage sighed again and then rolled over onto his back before realizing the person behind him was the one and only Jellal Fernandez.

"Hmph, figures you'd fall in love with a snake," the guild leader murmured.

Cobra sat up immediately and cursed him out. "What the hell are you talking about?"

And maybe for the first time in a while, Cobra saw a sly smirk crawled up Jellal's face.

And the dragon slayer did not like that smile on the ultramarine's face _at all_.

It didn't suit him. Not one bit.

* * *

 **:P Payback time indeed. More to come. I haven't forgotten about Kinana.**

 **thir13enth**


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